The Saga of XCOM
by Us555
Summary: This story starts with the origin of XCOM and follows in their struggle to defeat the alien menace. It is XCOM with the Enemy Within expansion, Long War mod, and a few more realistic touches to help. Rated M for language, gore, and general violence. (It's XCOM what do you expect?)
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue **

**Facility: Observatory Outpost. Location: Northern California Mountains. Time: 1:23 am PDT 2/9/2015**

Dr. Howard Chase left the break room, he had just finished a cup of coffee and was reclined in his chair. He was scanning over the new photos the Hubble had just taken. There wasn't much out of the ordinary and he was about to call it for the night when he spotted something unusual in the corner. Far off and out of focus was an oblong shape, distant, but as he looked through the repeated frames he saw slight changes in its location. It wasn't an asteroid, it was too smooth for that. It wasn't a satellite or a probe, the former were nowhere near by and of the latter there was no known probe sent out or for that matter in the general vicinity of the sector he was examining. It was then that his cell phone rang jumping him out of his stupor. He quickly answered it "This is Dr. Chase speaking, who is calling?" he began. The other quickly responded "Howard? Oh it's good you're up. It's me Dr. Moore, have you seen the most recent shots from the Hubble?" "Oh, you saw it to?" Chase inquired. "Yeah and me and all the rest of the boys at NASA are running around trying to find out what that thing is. We only got a few more shots before it just disappeared. We think it might be extraterrestrial in origin." Moore said. "Wait," Chase began "you mean to tell me that that thing is a UFO? You must be jok-" Moore cut him off "No I'm not. Now whether or not this thing was made by little green men from mars we don't know yet, but that's the problem, we don't know and we need to find out NOW." "Okay," Chase stated "what do you want me to do?" "Pack your bags and catch the nearest plane to Washington, we're going to need you at NASA headquarters." Moore finished "Very well Frank, I'm on my way." As Dr. Chase hung up the phone he sighed and put his hands on his head it was going to be a long week.

**Facility: NASA Headquarters. Location: Washington D.C. Time: 2:10 pm EDT 2/10/2015**

The room was a flurry of activity as Dr. Howard Chase walked in; multiple NASA science team and military personnel were running around as a giant screen projected photos of the UFO in the center of the room "Chase there you are!" an exasperated Dr. Moore called out "I'm glad you were able to get here on such short notice. We haven't had a second's break over here since that thing was first spotted." "Does anyone else know about this?" Chase questioned, "Yes the boys at the EU know as well as the guys in Russia. Besides that we don't know if anyone else has seen it" Moore replied "Look the President is on his way," He continued "so get ready to tell him all you know." Just then silence filled the room as the president walked in "Well?" He began "I was called here under what I had heard as urgent developments in the sky, so what can you tell me?" General Bolden stepped up to answer "Sir at 0300 yesterday we got an unidentified contact from the Hubble which we believe to be extraterrestrial in origin." "Did it try to make contact with us?" the President questioned "No sir it was just there one second then gone the next; so far that's all we know." The general finished. "Very well; I'll alert the other world leaders of this and we will decide what to do from there. Any objections?" The President challenged as silence filled the room. After a brief pause he continued "In that case I better make a few calls," He started to leave the room then abruptly stopped "and one more thing: not a word leaves this room. Got it?" A chorus of yes sirs erupted as he left the room. After the door closed General Bolden stepped up cleared his throat and announced "well everyone get some rest because in a few hours we are very likely going to have our work cut out for us." And with that the crowd dissipated as everyone began to leave for their houses or hotels. Hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before the nations came up with a plan of action.

**Facility: The White House. Location: Washington D.C. Time: 3:45 pm EDT 2/10/2015**

It had taken a little over an hour and a half to negotiate with the other countries who had detected the ship mostly thanks to the fact that they themselves had only just gotten wise to what happened and had just finished being briefed by their own scientists when they got the call still though not much progress was made all that had been decided for now was that there should be some military force in place to deal with any aliens should they come of which only these requirements were decided

The force would be sponsored by all countries and as such would not bow down to any one country

The force should have both unlimited authority and jurisdiction only obeying the wishes of the council of nations who would fund its efforts

The force would be based in Cheyenne mountain but the leaders of the organization would be handpicked by the council and it would be up to the organization's leaders to recruit other personnel

This organization would be staffed only by a skeleton crew until the possibility of invasion occurred where upon additional base personnel would be recruited

This organization would be called the extraterrestrial combat force or XCOM for short

With these mandates in place a brief respite occurred while the nations prepared possible rosters for personnel to join the project whereupon the next day talks would resume.

**Facility: The White House. Location: Washington D.C. Time 12:55 pm EDT 2/13/2015**

It had been three days, three days of almost ceaseless negotiations and barley any progress had been made. The President sighed, multiple rosters of varying levels of bias had been put forth and almost all of them had been shot down. Still the negotiations hadn't been a total waste they had at least decided to recruit based on skill rather than loyalty to a country which was a pretty big achievement in itself; after that it took an additional day to narrow down the candidates so far this is what they had:

Chief scientist candidates: Dr. Moira Vahlen, Dr. Hongou Marazuki, Dr. Frank Moore, and Dr. Langy Mervin

Chief engineer candidates: Dr. Raymond Shen, Dr. Kristoffer Darius, and Dr. Shamus Nicky

Central Officer: SMSgt David Bradford, LCol Errol Hector, Air Cdre Gordon Fillip, and OTL i.G Jakob Ewan

Commander: MRAF Jarred Baldwin, CMSAF James Everett, CMSAF Armee Blount, and Gen Anthony Eyre

It took about six hours to decide on the chief engineer and scientist, one hour for the central officer, and it wasn't until they got to the commander that things ground to a halt. It took two more days of threatening, placating, and one or two black mailings before the commander was finally chosen. "Alright." an exasperated President moaned "Are we all in agreement?" a chorus of yes's echoed through the video call "Very well, the chief scientist will be a Dr. Vahlen, the chief engineer will be a Dr. Shen, the central officer will be a SMSgt Bradford, and the commander will be a CMSAF Everett. Everyone clear on that?" Once again a chorus of yes's with varying degrees of enthusiasm occurred "Excellent, America will finish the XCOM base, we will all notify the selected individuals, and we will all select our preferred troops and base personnel to send to the XCOM project should the need occur. Farwell everyone and good luck." With that the President cut off the transmission and sat down he was going to have a lonnnnng break after this.

**Author's Note:**

**I've had this idea in my head for a while to the point where I actually thought up how certain chapters would go and the basic arc of the story, so I finally decided to start writing it. I hope you all enjoy. I've also taken this as an opportunity to improve my writing skills for future school papers and finals, so constructive criticism is very much appreciated. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Prologue part II**

**Facility: Berlin University of Technology. Location: Berlin, Germany. Time: 5:00 am CET 2/14/15**

Dr. Vahlen woke up with a start at the sound of loud knocking on her lab door. She had only been a sleep for a few hours on her desk and was rather groggy. Since the discovery of the UFO she had spent almost every waking minute trying to find out anything she could about it, which was very little. The picture was out of focus and beside its general shape and purplish hue nothing more could be determined. But that didn't stop her from trying. What was it made of, how did it move, was it manned or unmanned, who had built it, did they specifically come here or were they just passing through? These questions swirled in her mind in the past few days and even then after she had woke up they lingered at the fringes of her consciousness. She stumbled to the door where the knocking had yet to cease "What, what is it!?" she began as she opened the door and was met with the faces of two government officials. "Are you Dr. Vahlen?" they began. "Yes, yes I am who is asking?" "The German Chancellor has requested you meet her immediately, she has seen your work and wants to give you a proposition." "Me? What is this proposition?" "She wouldn't say," they continued "all we know is that it's classified and you're they only one authorized to know besides her. Now please follow us we will take you to a car which will drive you to her flat. Understood?" "Yes." She replied and quickly followed them as they exited the building. It was a stormy morning and rain was coming down hard on the cobblestone street with the only light coming from her lab, the street lights, and the idling car. The officials opened an umbrella and led her to the car whereupon they got in. The minute they entered it drove off at a breakneck speed slamming her into the car seat as it rocketed away. It took about 30 minutes for them to reach the Chancellor's flat as they drove through the Berlin traffic once they got there the officials opened the door and led her into the apartment and up to the flat. They stopped at the entrance and one of the officials knocked on the door. "Who is it?" a voice called from the door, "It's us and we have Dr. Vahlen with us." "Excellent. I'll let her in." She replied. It was then the door opened and Vahlen was let in.

The foyer was a large spacious room that was very neat and covered with various paintings and pictures on the wall. "Please, please sit down doctor" the Chancellor stated motioning to a chair next to a table "This may take a while." Once Vahlen and the Chancellor had sat down and got themselves comfortable the Chancellor began "so by now you're probably wondering why you are here and you look like a businesslike women so I'll cut to the chase. As you probably know 5 days ago an object was spotted in space that was identified to be extraterrestrial in origin; well naturally that got both the scientific community and the governments riled up. Look I'll spare you the details of the negotiations between countries and tell you what was decided. The nations of Earth came to the conclusion that in the case of an invasion we would need a line of defense to engage the invaders, adapt their technology for our own uses, and manufacture our own version of their technology. For this we would need a leader for their own respective branches to manage their own facilities, personnel, and projects. You were chosen to be the chief scientist and lead researcher for this project; any questions?" Vahlen was stunned. Her? Of all the people she was the one chosen to lead the research division of this project? "Uhhhh I don't know what to say Chancellor. I'm honored I guess, but what do I do now? Am I to leave immediately for this project, who will be my colleagues, and where for that matter is this project located?" "Well for starters you don't have to worry about this project right now it's only a contingency plan in case of invasion which is highly unlikely so you don't need to leave right now we'll notify you if the project is ever activated. Now due to the nature of this project it is highly classified and as such you will only know the location and your colleagues should the project be activated. Look I'm really sorry but that's about all the questions I can answer right now." Vahlen pursed her lips. _So_ she thought _that's all the information I can know. _"Alright then tell me why exactly did you go through all the trouble waking me up and dragging me all the way here just to tell me _sorry you can't know anything except this exist and you'll probably never know anything more really. _If this was all you wanted to tell me why didn't you wait until I got up before notifying me of this?" "Ah," the Chancellor stammered "well you see we would have waited but you hadn't signed out of your lab so we thought that you were up so we decided that we would tell you now." Vahlen paused, she had a point there, even though she had fallen asleep she hadn't actually meant to. "Still you could have waited until later in the day." She responded. "You're right I'm sorry for inconveniencing you like this, would you like to go out for breakfast this morning?" the Chancellor offered. "With all due respect Chancellor I would rather go home and get some rest." _I also have a lot to think on today. _"Of course I shouldn't keep you waiting; please go get some rest." "Yes I will. Goodbye Chancellor." And with that Dr. Vahlen left. The men were waiting at the exit of the apartment to take her wherever she needed/wanted to go. She quickly got into the car, the rain had stopped leaving a cloudy sky as the dawn began peaking over the horizon. As she told them where to go and the car drove away she began to ponder over what she had just learned. _So I am to take place in an effort to repel an alien invasion should the event occur. Well that brings a new thought to the table. What if aliens do invade? While I would much prefer a peaceful first contact what would I do if they came with hostile intentions? I don't want to say that I don't care so long as they bring their technology to study, but while I wouldn't be weeping over it happening I still would lament over the fact that they came with hostile intent. I know I should feel guilty but I would be ecstatic at the chance to study their technology. Oh well, _she though as the car pulled up to her house, _I'll have time to think about this later, for now sleep would be best for me. _With that she got up, left the car, and entered her apartment; passing out the minute her head hit the pillow.

**Author's note: Sorry I meant to finish this awhile back but I was super busy this week. This chapter is just a part of what was supposed to be a lot longer chapter; I mostly put this just to show I'm not dead. Hope to finish the full chapter soon. As always reviews are appreciated.**


End file.
